


Since I Saw You Last

by fffan201



Category: Take That (Band)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Sad, Spiritual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-10 06:45:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12293538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fffan201/pseuds/fffan201
Summary: In this OneShot, Robbie had just completed his "The Heavy Entertainment Show" tour and visited an old friend.





	Since I Saw You Last

**And if you die before i leave  
What on earth becomes of me  
Look around there’s no-one here  
To love me and hold me**

 

It was a cold morning in September, when Robbie was trying to get a very difficult passage behind him. He knew he had to do it someday, but he didn’t want it. While he had buried his hands deep in his pockets and the absolute emptiness in his eyes reflected, the entertainer went along a narrow path until he finally came to a halt. He looked oppressed at his feet, where the ground was softened by the rain of the last days, and he now stood in the midst of a huge and muddy puddle. For about two months now, he had nothing to do with himself. It was as if the world had stopped to turn and even the time had no longer any meaning. His life was no longer what it once was. While his world had only an ugly gray color and tirelessly extended his life around him, his tired and clouded gaze glided to one side and fixed a very definite place. It took an eternity until Robbie finally felt able to turn to the previously fixed position and to deal with a rather sad mood.

He still couldn’t believe it. Everything was just too terrible. Struggling with the tears, but one already chewing over his slightly heated cheek, he wondered how it could ever happen. Sure. He already knew what had happened and how this disastrous and tragic accident had happened, but that one of his best friends had succumbed to his serious injuries after about a week and thus had to give up his still too young life was simply not fair. While a simple tombstone stood in a few steps before him, the engraved and silvered writing now became more than painfully aware of the fact that the dead person was his most beloved friend. 

 

**Gary Barlow**

**20/01/1971 – 21/06/2017**

**Loved son, husband, father, friend and a celebrated pop star who’s missed by many fans.**

**R.I.P.**

 

"Oh God. Gaz. I'm so sorry I wasn’t there ...and that I'm only coming now. ...I miss you so badly." Robbie sobbed then he even began to cry. 

That hit Robbie now much harder than he expected. Because of his alcohol and drug addiction, he had always thought that he would be the first to die from the former boy band and now no more longer existing men group around Take That. 

Why did it have to be Gary first? Why?

With the image in front of his eyes like this terrible accident could happen, he lost his strength in his legs and sank to the ground. It was a picture which, thanks to the very eager press and, of course, from his own imagination - he would always carry around with him. Like Gary during their last concert on the big "Wonderland" tour, and so before the eyes of several thousands of fans, a few meters high and flying bed more than unhappy. Actually, the whole construction and the technology was considered to be quite safe as well as high quality and should not have happened, but on this last evening the misfortune happened where the cable winches broke at one end of the bed. Then everything happened incredibly fast. Shortly after Gary fell to the ground from a not very low height and remained motionless, the second winch broke and the heavy bed was also a victim of gravity. ...Which within a fraction of a second would bury the unconscious Gary among itself and seal’s his fate for all eternity. 

God. Everything was just so terrible.

 

Even the day, as a crying and inconsolable Mark had told him of the dreadful news of Gary's death, and now about three months ago, he wouldn’t be able to forget so quickly. Because at this time and a late night hour when he got it, he had been on tour for some weeks already, so Robbie had hardly the opportunity to say goodbye to his little friend. At first he even wanted to cancel some concerts and make up for them later, but his new manager insisted that he did the complete tour as planned. Even on his tour days off, he had not even allowed him to visit Gary's grave. 

But now that his tour had finally come to an end and he couldn’t get here fast enough, Robbie was now on a cold day in the cemetery and thus also in front of the grave of his best friend. As he sat sobbing in the mud, staring with tearful eyes and an empty gaze, he slumped in a trance-like state after half a minute of his deep grief. Shortly after that, the one in front of him and simple grave, moved into his focus.

"Why did you leave me so early? Why?"

After Robbie had spoken these words more in a whisper - almost in his own mind, an icy wind blew up in a fraction of a second, which instantly caused him to shiver. When this feeling that all the warmth was taken to him at once and he soon felt a warm shower, Robbie actually thought to hear a voice.  
"I miss you so much." Robbie ignored this more than disturbing voice.

"Rob?" The voice was now louder and also had a more than unusual bright sound.

As this one voice was familiar to Robbie, he did it as an acoustic hallucination. It had to be a one. He had no other explanation for it. Just because the person was dead ...and it has been around for about three months. 

"G... Gary? Is ...is it you?"  
"Yes. I've been waiting for you."  
"Where ...where are you?"  
"Right next to you. ...But you can only see me when you close your eyes and call me with your heart."  
"I've done it so many times. Why did not you look at me much earlier?"  
"You have to be here already, otherwise it will not work. I'm bound by certain rules, so I cannot show you until you have visited my grave."  
"So if my stupid new manager had not been and left me ...would you have shown me sooner?" Robbie spoke to himself at first and when he closed his eyes for a moment, he greeted the spirit around Gary with his heart and shortly thereafter he actually saw a slightly transparent figure beside him, to his friend.

The sight of Gary was already a little habituation and also had something anxious about it. Of course, it wasn’t the case that Gary's appearance seemed to be a fear, or that he was drawn from his accident in all sorts of colors - which he fortunately did not, but it was much more the circumstances that Gary looked like a ghost.

"Certainly. So I wonder now, why you have not just to come. I mean, ...you always do what you are after and get what you want."  
"I ...I don’t know why I just did not. Perhaps it ...it was much more ..." Robbie tried to explain, but in the end he drowned more and more in his own words.  
"The fear of the uncertainty about what then could come up to you?" Gary could already imagine what Robbie had stopped to coming here.  
Then Robbie gave a nod and said with a sadly voice: "I'd like to take you into my arms too much, but that will probably not work."  
"Why shouldn’t that work? ...Look at yourself."

After Robbie had a look down at himself, he was almost frightened that he had just like Gary a slightly transparent glimmer. What happened? Was he dead himself now? When he saw his own person in a kneeling position shortly after and behind him, he couldn’t fall fast enough around Gary's neck. While Gary replied his very stormy embrace, Robbie buried himself more and more into the arms of his little friend, trying not to burst into tears before him. What Robbie did not succeed. So he cried bitter tears and sobbed again and again how much he felt sorry for him that he had not already found the way here. But Gary told him every time he did not feel sorry for him. The main thing was that Robbie was here, on his side. So that he could more than finally solve his last fetters.

"I miss you so much." Robbie whispered into the embrace.  
"I miss you too, Rob. ...A distant day we'll be together again."  
"Please don’t say a distant day. I ...I don’t want to wait so long, and you also give me the feeling that I have to kill myself to see you as soon as possible."  
In his words, Gary dismissed Robbie from his embrace, grabbed him by the shoulders and then tried to convince him with a firm voice that he should not commit a life-changing stupidity: "I beg you, Rob. Don’t do that. Don’t even think about it for a second. You don’t know what's going to happen to you. ...Those, who’s have killed themselves, will be condemned to eternal darkness and there you will certainly not go to there. As far as I have heard, the new entrances from their mortal shells are not taken from the soul, and so you become an outcast. You are regarded as a traitor who has not deserved to get a safe place among us - who did not blame themselves for their death. Where you will land then, is the real hell. Everyone else is on the safe side, no matter what he or she has done in his or her life. ...So please, do me the favor and don’t even think about it for a second. I don’t want to see you down there, have you understood me? You're not going to do anything like that, okay? …Promise me!"  
"Promise!" Robbie nodded to him in a whisper and wiping away a non-existent tear.  
"And I promise you, as soon as your time has come, I will make your way back at my side easier. And if you have a problem, you can call me at any time. I'm there for you. No matter where you are."  
"Not that you're going on my mind like a ghost." Robbie tried to give his sadness a different face and gave Gary a cheeky grin.  
"There’s my old Rob again, just as I know him. Please keep that and don’t be sad any more. It's really all right. Even if I had always been afraid before dying, I now know that this is not so bad. I'm fine here and we'll definitely see us again. Only you alone determine when and where I can go on to your mind like a ghost."  
"Even if you are a one, but with your blond hair you look more like an angel with a halo."  
"Well. Then you can dedicate me to your beautiful song _Angels_."  
"To be honest, I've already done this. ...Since you stepped out of my life much too early, I've always sang _Angels_ just for you. What never went without tears ...and I wasn’t the only one!"  
"I know. ...It's terrible enough that it had to happen before the eyes of the fans ...and also before Howard and Mark. The shock of the two is still very deep and especially with Mark ", Gary knew all too well that he was still missed by all the many fans around the world more than painfully and that his two last Take That companions still had their difficulties, to resign themselves to his death, "...Speaking of Mark. He's calling me. Do you have anything against it if I leave you for the time and I go to Mark's side?"  
"You can go, for Mark's sake."  
"Really? I can leave you alone with a clear conscience? You do not really give me the impression that it is really right for you."  
"I do not. But I admit openly that I just do not want to let you go for a minute and that I need you more than anything else in the moment, but when Mark just needs you too, I cannot say no. ...And I can really see you as often as I want?"  
"Sure. You know how to call me now. It was only important that you come here and visit my grave. ...So you can solve my shackles. Thank you for finally doing it. All the time, when I could not help you with your pain, was really more than infinitely difficult for me. But thanks to you I can do it now and before I go, do not forget one thing ..." Gary confirmed to his friend that he could see him as often as he wanted and let him for his farewell to know, what he could never forget and was interrupted by his opponent.  
"Don’t worry. I'm not going to kill myself. To see you no more would be the worst for me and that I will not."  
"I know that and actually, I wanted to tell you something quite different. That I'm always with you ...in your heart!" Gary knew that after his warning, Robbie would not commit a life-changing measure and while he said his last three words, he put a hand on his chest, where his heart was.

When Robbie registered that Gary was getting closer and closer to him, he was still listening to his own ears, as his little and no longer living friend said good-bye to him and that they would soon see each other again. To keep Gary's spirit in his mind for a moment, the singer closed his eyes and when he opened it, he found himself back in his own body.

Looking to the front, facing the tombstone, he whispered: "Thank you for all my friend. ...My Captain. Take care. See you soon."

 

**THE END**

**Author's Note:**

> Of course, I know that Gary was safed to the song "It's All For You", but after seeing the first pictures and even visiting one of the concerts in London, I had to imagine what would happen. Fortunately it wasn't so. After all, we do not want anything like that happening. ... For many more years and that TAKE THAT will be around for a long time.


End file.
